Finding Her Treasure: A Lesbian Romance
FINDING HER TREASURE
Alexa Woods
Table of Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Epilogue
Description
Romi has given up on love after one too many heartbreaks. She’s
determined to stay focused and chase her passions- out of the bedroom- and
that starts with her new job.
Kiera has never let herself take a chance on love. She’s done just fine on
her own - building a successful business from the ground up. She’s proud to
say she did it all single-handedly!.
Opposites attract, right? When Romi starts her new job, she’s
immediately intrigued by her older, sensual boss. When she realizes how
much Kiera needs her, she can’t help but take the risk.
Kiera’s resolution not to get involved is quickly put to the test when she
meets her new, beautiful employee. Soon, physical attraction turns into
something else and Kiera realizes that she’s going to have to be honest. Not
just with herself, but with everyone else as well.
With the mural attraction harder to fight, will Romi and Kiera
allow themselves to open their hearts and take a chance on real love
and happiness?
Chapter 1
Kiera
“When I said that we needed an experienced, mature, knowledgeable
new staff member, I didn’t mean a twenty-year-old blond bimbo who
dropped out of college and is looking for the next hot thing for a few weeks
to paste all over her social media to impress her friends with.”
“Geez.” Wynn rolled his eyes. “Tell me how you really feel. And in case
you didn’t notice, she’s a brunette.”
“I know she’s a brunette,” Kiera growled. “That was just an expression. I
feel like you did the exact opposite of what I asked for. We got over twenty
resumes. Did you do this just to spite me?”
“Of course not.”
Wynn Rosland, antiques expert and manager extraordinaire, was Kiera’s
most trusted confidant. He was a lifetime friend of the family. For a man
who was going to be seventy in two months, he was as fit as any guy in his
thirties. His bushy eyebrows and the stark white beard that matched were
well known all over Cincinnati.
“Well, why, then?” Kiera huffed.
It was late. After a long day spent picking in a barn that was held
together by mouse shit and a thousand layers of dust instead of actual wood,
Kiera made the extremely poor choice of dropping by the store because
Wynn was so eager for her to meet the new hire. She’d stepped through the
back door, past the back rooms that were overflowing in areas and stacked
to the ceiling in others, and headed up to the second floor of the four-story
building where Wynn was working on putting together a display of antique
and vintage dishes. He was a master with the cell and had texted her that
afternoon that he was training and she should stop in.
She had another four days lined up with picks. Picks was just a fancy
term for going to someone’s house or barn and going through piles and piles
of old stuff. Going on a pick was a little bit like going on a treasure hunt.
The kid in her always salivated at the thought of all those old items just
waiting to be discovered and brought back to life. Kiera had spent years
working her butt off in college, and later working shit jobs until she
developed a few apps that really took off. She suddenly had a successful
career and enough money to retire.
She’d found her success at thirty-one and had spent the last two years
dedicating her life to her greatest passion. Antiques were always a hobby,
but when she found herself with the means to make her wildest dreams a
reality, she’d gone all in. Bought an ancient warehouse that was once a flour
factory and turned it into a thriving antique mall. The massive store was
now a hotspot for anyone who wanted anything from architectural salvage
to antique furniture and everything in between.
“Romi is—”
“What kind of a name is Romi?” Kiera knew she was being mean, but
she couldn’t help it. She was exhausted, filthy, and incredibly hangry. She
hadn’t eaten anything since breakfast and it was now pushing five. Her
blood sugar was turning her into a raging monster.
“Ramona, actually. She said she doesn’t like it. Prefers Romi. I think
that’s perfectly normal. You were just saying a few days ago how much you
disliked old names and thought that the new trend of picking really strange
names was awesome.”
“Whatever. Fine. Alright, sorry. Her name doesn’t matter. I just need a
freaking sandwich.”
“I know.” Wynn grinned at her, because he knew all about her. He’d been
a friend of her grandparents and parents. He’d watched her grow up. He
was the grandfather she never had, because both of her sets of grandparents
had passed away before she was even born.
Kiera pretended to be busy inspecting something on her desk in the vast
office. Of course, everything in the place was about as antique as it got.
Huge oak desk. Even bigger upholstered chair, two epic lamps, once with
beads hanging from the glass shade, the other the token gold base and green
shade combo. She had a variety of other objects in there that she never
used, but just liked the look of—antique typewriters, a magnifying glass, an
antique stamp machine, an ancient stapler that hardly looked like a stapler
at all. She liked making people guess what it was because it was so strange
looking that stapler was always the last guess, if it came out at all. The rest
of the square space was filled up with vintage oil paintings in all sorts of
sizes and frames, and random knickknacks that were rare and strange. Kiera
changed it up often. Things eventually made their way out to the floor for
sale when she found something new to clutter up the shelves, corners, walls,
and her leftover desk space.
She leaned against the ancient gold radiator behind her desk. It served no
purpose and wasn’t even hooked up. She just loved the look of it. This one
had little gold angels on the sides of it. It was ridiculously ornate, salvaged
from an ancient building that was torn down the year before.
“Look, Kiera, I know what your first
impression is. I know she’s not
what you were expecting. The truth is, I could have hired people more
experienced, or older, but I like her. I think she’s a good fit.”
“Really?” Kiera raised a brow and crossed her arms. “In what way?”
Wynn arranged himself into the high-backed blue upholstered chair in
front of the desk. It was one of two, the other was a white egg-shaped dome
style chair with a red cushion. Kiera had always liked having the most
eclectic décor and her office was a true testament to her love of all things
from the past. She didn’t just buy what she liked. She had a good head for
business and she always purchased what she thought would sell, even if it
wasn’t her taste. Although things that weren’t her taste were few and far
between. She used to drive her parents nuts with her love for absolutely
everything. She couldn’t count the number of garage sales and thrift stores
she’d dragged her parents into before she was a teenager and got her license
and could drive herself.
For some people, when they finally made it, they wanted to live in as
much luxury as possible. She felt the exact opposite. Not that her house
wasn’t nice. It was. But it was also over a hundred years old, and even
though it was in quite a prestigious neighborhood, it didn’t stand out as a
rich person place to live. Not that she thought of herself that way. To her,
the money she made was a way to make her dreams come true, not
something to buy fancy cars or take extravagant, ridiculous trips with.
“In the way that she’s great with customers. She has six years of retail
experience. She studied theater in college. She’s artsy. She’s already great
with the displays. You should see what she put together. She has an eye for
it. She’s sharp. A fast learner. She might know far less about actual terms
and years and dates, but that’s what we’re here for. And Myrtle, Sylvia, and
Betty.”
“And all the guys and gals who help out with moving things in and out of
the store and delivery and picks and sorting and all the vendors who sell
here and put in hours for a lower commission rate. Yeah, I get it. There are a
lot of us who know a lot. She could ask anyone.”
“And learn from anyone.”
“She’s just…she’s…”
“Not even blonde,” Wynn said flatly.
“I know, I know. I was seriously kidding about that. I’m just saying…
she’s dressed…”
“Just fine.”
“She was wearing a green frilly dress and heels. She looked like she
stepped out of the fifties. Except that her hair was wrong.”
Kiera blinked to rid herself of the image of the new hire—Ramona,
Romi, whatever—wearing that tight-fitting dress. The top looked like it was
pasted on and the skirt was about two feet wide on either side. The dress
flattered Romi’s tall, curvy figure. The dress outlined her full breasts and
tucked in at an impossibly narrow waist before it flared out at gently curved
hips to hide everything until where the skirt ended to reveal long, shapely
legs. Kiera hadn’t failed to notice how Romi’s creamy, shapely calves
flexed from the height of her heels. She was immediately jealous of those
calves. She was jealous of a few more things too. Jealous and…well…she
was more than jealous.
Romi’s face was as beautiful as the rest of her. She had thick dark hair
that she’d pulled into a high pony tail. It glistened in the overhead lights,
glossy and healthy, as it swung back and forth, and hung halfway down her
back. She had pretty much perfect features. Flawless, creamy skin. A nice
straight nose, full lips, high cheekbones, a sharp jawline. If Romi went out
to a bar, there would no doubt be a pack of eager, salivating guys lined up to
buy her a drink and try to be the one to take her home. Romi was the kind
of woman other women naturally hated because she was so damn beautiful.
No, it definitely wasn’t just jealousy that Kiera felt. She felt the stirrings
of quite a few other sensations in some very inconvenient spots. That alone
pissed her off. Girls like Romi were off limits. Everyone was off limits.
She’d been burned a few times and learned the hard way that dating and all
the messy feelings that went with it weren’t for her. Now, she had a fake
boyfriend who her conservative parents adored. John was everything that
they wanted for their daughter. He was everything because he was a guy
and there were precious few of those she’d brought home over the years.
Money had given her just about everything she could ever want, but it
hadn’t made it any easier to tell her parents she was a lesbian. She’d been
trying to find the courage for years, but somehow it always faltered, and
every time she’d tried to sit down and have the conversation with them, it
just never happened.
Honestly, she was scared. She was an only child. She had one aunt, two
uncles, three cousins, and that was it. To her, family was everything. She
couldn’t bear to think about losing them because they wouldn’t accept her
for who she truly was.
“Does that actually matter?” Wynn asked, bringing her back to the
present. “So what if she likes retro clothes? A dress and heels hasn’t
impacted her ability to work. She did more today, on her second day, than
some of us can do in weeks. I’m impressed. I think you should give her a
chance.”
“A chance? To destroy the business? To spend all her time flirting with
customers instead of actually helping them?”
Wynn rolled his eyes again. His left knee started to vibrate as he bounced
his foot up and down, which Kiera knew he did when he was annoyed. She
was pushing all his buttons and she knew it. She never acted like this.
Petulant. Childish. Spouting stereotypes and judgements. That wasn’t her.
“Okay, I’m sorry. She just wasn’t what I was expecting. I’ll give her two
weeks. A trial period. Starting from the day you hired her.”
“Considering we do give everyone a trial period and that was explained
to her, I think that would be wise.”
“Right,” Kiera grumbled. She pushed off the radiator and straightened.
“I’ll leave it up to you to decide since I’m going to be busy doing picks for
the next few weeks anyway.”
“I thought you only had two more lined up for this week. You’re
scheduled to be here all next week as far as I know. Do I have to make
changes to it?”
Kiera sucked her bottom lip into her mouth and bit down on it hard. She
realized that what she was doing was obvious and let it spring loose. Wynn
continued to stare her down with his unnerving blue eyes. They were crystal
clear and the oddest shade. It made her think of Romi’s green eyes. Feral.
Cat like. Jade. Emeralds. Beautiful.
“No. You’re right. I have a few things in the works, but as of now, they’re
not confirmed. I’ll let you know if you have to make any changes.”
“Alright.” Wynn unfolded himself from the chair with far more energy
than a man his age should have. Kiera felt exhausted after a day picking.
She
knew very well that Wynn could spend twice that long, working twice
as hard, and still have energy left over. “Great. Two weeks. I’m sure you’ll
be impressed. You should have introduced yourself upstairs instead of
staring daggers and asking me to come meet you in your office.”
“Sorry. Hangry, remember?” she muttered.
“Next time when you come in, try to make a better impression. Romi’s
going to be great. I only hire good ones, remember?”
“Yeah.” Kiera bit the inside of her cheek.
“She’s not going to stick around if she thinks that the owner of this place
is a fire breathing dragon with a pike up her ass.”
“Thanks for that image.”
“It’s an apt comparison.”
“I’ll be sure to pull it out for Monday when I get back here, then.”
“Great. Did you find anything good today?”
“Yeah. The whole trailer is full.”
“I can’t wait to go through it when it gets here.” Wynn was practically
salivating as he rubbed his hands in anticipation. He pretty much lived and
breathed antiques. Kiera would be surprised if rust and dust didn’t run
through his veins instead of blood.
Monday. That left her four days to make peace with the fact that the most
beautiful, temping, probably intelligent, probably nice too, attractive,
tempting, woman was going to be working with her all day, every day.
She barely managed not to let out a groan of despair. The store was
supposed to be her safe place. Her happy place. Her. Place. It wasn’t
supposed to be a place of torture, where she had to hide herself away
because it was safer. For everyone.
Chapter 2
Romi
After a sleepless night spent worrying about the beautiful, athletic,
intimidating, pissed off woman who was her new boss, Romi decided to
broach the subject with Wynn, the older man who had interviewed, hired,
and was training her.
She waited until just after lunch, when the store was quieter and they
were able to get back up to one of the top floors to work on a display of
antique and vintage ornaments and household accessories.
Romi picked up a particularly grouchy, warty-looking ceramic toad and
smiled at its face. It was so ugly it was cute, like many antiques actually
were. Not ugly. No, that wasn’t the right word. More like…extremely